-CHARLES I. rz§

Jo little favorable to royal authority. - But never cwas so much multiplied , as at present, the useof these committees; and the commons, thoughthemselves the greatest innovators, employed theusual artifice of complaining against innovations,and pretending to recover the ancient and estab*Jiflied government.

From the reports of their committees, therhouse daily passed votes, which mortified andastonished the court, and inflamed and animatedthe nation. Ship-money was declared illegal andarbitrary; the sentence againstjdambden cancelled;the court of York abolished ; compositions forknighthood stigmatized; the enlargement of theforests condemned; patents for monopolies annul-led ; and every late measure of administrationtreated with reproach and obloquy. To day, asentence of the star-chamber was exclaimed against:To morrow, a decree of the high-commission.Every discretionary act of council was representedas arbitrary and tyrannical; and the general in-ference was still inculcated, that a formed designhad been laid to subvert the laws and constitution•of the kingdom.

From necessity, the king remained entirelypassive during all these, violent operations. Thefew servants, who continued faithful to him , wereseized with astonishment at the rapid progressmade by the commons in power and popularity,and were glad, by their unactive and inoffensivebehaviour , to compound for impunity. Thetorrent rising to Jo dreadful and unexpected A

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